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XHTML may have been a big-selling buzz word, but as far as I'm concerned, it was never truly relevant (at least for the general web). Plenty of people used the XHTML doctype and added self-closing slashes, but virtually all of them nonetheless served their pages as text/html, which means as far as the browser is concerned, the markup was still just plain old HTML. And since pages were being served as plain old HTML, none of the promised XHTML goodies ever materialized, such as being able to mix in new markup languages like MathML.

But if the point of your question is whether XHTML is still a top-selling buzz word, I'd have to say no. HTML5 is definitely the new top-selling buzz word.

I always (for the last year or two, that is) use the "HTML5" doctype and just try to ensure my markup can be parsed as XML. Honestly, I dont see a good reason to use any doctype other than the generic "HTML5" doctype. Whether you take advantage of the new functionality is really another matter.

I always (for the last year or two, that is) use the "HTML5" doctype and just try to ensure my markup can be parsed as XML. Honestly, I dont see a good reason to use any doctype other than the generic "HTML5" doctype. Whether you take advantage of the new functionality is really another matter.

I do the same exact thing. I don't use a wysiwyg editor so I type everything out by hand, and typing the xhtml doctype or the html 4 doctype is just to time consuming and useless. I use the HTML5 doctype.

XHTML may have been a big-selling buzz word, but as far as I'm concerned, it was never truly relevant (at least for the general web). Plenty of people used the XHTML doctype and added self-closing slashes, but virtually all of them nonetheless served their pages as text/html, which means as far as the browser is concerned, the markup was still just plain old HTML. And since pages were being served as plain old HTML, none of the promised XHTML goodies ever materialized, such as being able to mix in new markup languages like MathML.

But if the point of your question is whether XHTML is still a top-selling buzz word, I'd have to say no. HTML5 is definitely the new top-selling buzz word.

It's relevant like IE7 is relevant. I just think people using it are only doing so until HTML 5 officially hits and that's considering the number of people who were using it in the first place. As mentioned before, just use the HTML 5 Doctype even if you are basically using HTML 4.01.

Originally Posted by pdiddles03

I do the same exact thing. I don't use a wysiwyg editor so I type everything out by hand, and typing the xhtml doctype or the html 4 doctype is just to time consuming and useless. I use the HTML5 doctype.

Why use a template when I can type it out by hand myself and make it exactly the way i want. Also, people are making a big deal about all of this, I don't see a real big difference between xhtml, and html 4 and html 5 besides a few tags here and there are supported and not supported. Use whatever works for you. I don't think html5 is the big thing, I have lately been using css3 and jquery and those are the big things. They create attractive sites.

I do agree about jquery, but until I have my javascript class in school, and continue to study the actual javascript itself, it serves my needs. Half the things I would have used it fore though css3 has taken it's place. For example, the animations. I thought animations could only be done with javascript/jquery but css3 handles it nicely. The only reason I would include jquery is for fallback.

I'm not such a fan of jquery either. Most obfuscated nonsense on the planet, IMO. Jquery is the only library on the planet that produces more hideous Perlisms than Perl.

Try it and you might change your mind. I was the same way once when it came to jQuery and then I was blown away one day when I tried it and realized how much faster it makes working with dynamic UIs in the browser.

If you don't like it, then come up with something better.

I've switched careers...
I'm NO LONGER a scientist,
but now a web developer...
awesome.

Among the top 10,000 sites -- sites very likely not built by rank amateurs -- jQuery is used on half of all those sites. You may not personally like jQuery, but don't for a moment think it's for amateurs. A very large number of pros use it and love it.

Charles, I too was a Perl programmer once. I'm very much out of practice, but I do recall liking it quite a bit. Perlisms, however, are unacceptable in collaborative projects. And honestly, I eventually became tired of the Perl mentality and the code it produced for my own projects when it later became maintenance time.

When it comes to jquery (and similar libs), there is certainly no problem with leverage a good library of commonly-performed tasks. That's typically a very good thing, in fact. And I'll certainly admit that the same applies to jquery. As Jeff pointed out, a lot of very successful sites use jquery -- a much better reason to consider using jquery than any blessing given by it's developers or any one person in a forum.

But, there are still two problems.

1. jquery devs are typically Perlists at heart. It's as much the jquery I loathe as it is the obfuscated, poorly written code it encourages. It's the single, inefficient, never-ending line of code that is immediately followed by more mammoth one-liners, filled with unnecessary, inefficient repeat calls and constructs.

2. Folks tend to include jquery for the $ method, and not much else. They then ignore the rest of the library, and then often include 5 or 20 other libraries, which they use a few methods from, but ignore most of. So, you end up with sites that clobber you with 100's of kilos of library code, so the developer wouldn't have to think up the kilo or two of code they're actually using on their own.

A good number of jquery coders lean on libraries for damn near everything. They don't know how to work with the DOM. So, they often can't debug their own code, and sometimes don't even understand that jquery itself is just javascript. And since they're of the unwavering "don't reinvent the wheel" mindset (which should be a good thing), they tend to generate 10x or 100x more bandwidth than is necessary to produce trivial effects. To make an analogy, it's like

Let's reconsider Jeff's statement: "Among the top 10,000 sites -- sites very likely not built by rank amateurs -- jQuery is used on half of all those sites."

jquery is used by folks who are not amateurs. These folks know whether it's more efficient to include library X or to reinvent a few parts. They know code should be maintainable and easy to read. And they could very well re-write all of jquery if they needed to. They understand some of the inefficiencies and pitfalls behind certain effects, they understand that nothing is magic; something is happening behind the scenes.

The same is not true of amateurs. Amateurs should not get in the habit of including libraries to accomplish things they do not understand. Amateurs should, on the contrary, be spared the indoctrination and rather be encouraged to produce good, clean, maintainable code before they're directed to any helper libraries.

That's the way they they'll teach it in your CS courses -- they'll make you reinvent nearly every wheel before they let you use them.